I may be a little late, but it is worthwhile noting that the March, 2005 Cooper's Commentaries is UP!
Besides the Colonel's usual eclectic comments on everything from Swagger Sticks to the superiority of the 1903-A3 rifle, he provides these comments:
As the Holy War continues in Iraq, it remains clear that minor caliber smallarms cartridges are not working. The consensus we get back from the war zone is that while the 223 cartridge is a reasonably reliable stopper when hits are delivered to the upper torso region, they are not a really good answer to a fight. The Parabellum cartridge of 1908 is simply not a good idea, except possibly in the full-automatic mode - as with the machine pistol. As a sidearm cartridge it does not measure up - or have I mentioned that before?Huh. I can't make 50 rounds of pistol ammunition 'suffice' for ten minutes on the range. But he's right, of course; there are very few 'mag changes' in battle. And if your combat situation has so degraded that you have no available weapon better than your pistol, you're so far out on The Sharp End that the question of survival will not be determined by a 1-second reload.
While it is possible to scrounge a good pistol out there in Mesopotamia, ammunition is difficult to obtain. Of course a pistol is not fired very much in military combat. My studies of the matter suggest that 50 rounds of pistol ammunition should suffice for an entire war. It is unusual for an infantryman to fire more than a couple of magazines in a whole battle.
2 comments:
I've allways wondered about the whole stopping power debate. Can a tenth of an inch make that much difference, or is it the weight or speed of the bullet? Would +p or +p+ ammo help the m9? I believe they're restricted to ball ammo by Geneva, so HP is out.
I've also heard that NATO is going the other direction for a handgun, currently deciding between the FN 5.7x28 and an HK .17 round. The idea being a 2000fps+ round, in a gun that would be on the solder (if you chopper crashes, you're not going to be searching for you carbine), is better than the left behind carbine, or the m9. 5.56 or 7.62? Same idea?
I have no special experience or expertise to address the question of 'stopping power', except for hunting expeience when I tried to finish off a wounded Pronghorn Antelope by shooting it with a 1911 .45ACP in the chest. It didn't do much to aleviate the Antelope's suffering, and I ended up using my .25-06 rifle and shooting it in the neck. (It was a fine trophy, and I didn't want to bust up the skull ... so I chose to ruin the cape instead.)
But the FBI has already determined that the 9mm isn't a 'stopper'.
The .45 ACP is much more capable of stopping a determined assailant/combatant, and I suspect that this is because of the higher Sectional Density. This means that the .45 bullet with 230 grains hits harder than the .355 bullet with 115 grains, imparting greater momentum to the bullet. I don't know the velocity of 9mm Luger ammunition used by the Military, but it must be somewhere in the 1000 - 1200 FPS area. Using the IPSC formula for calculating "Power Factor" (PF), that suggests a PF of (bullet weight in grains times velocity, divided by 1000) 115 to 138 for the 9mm.
The PF for the 230 grain .45acp bullet, loaded to 800 fps, (230 x 800 / 1000)= 184.
This suggests that the bigger, heavier .45acp has more "knock-down power" than the 9mm at any velocity which we are likely to encounter in military ammunition.
To translate that to classical physics formulae, it's perhaps permissible to define "Momentum" in the sense of the generally accepted formula of p=mv.
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/energy_p_reln.html
If we consider the alternative measures, looking at Kinetic Energy formula of Energy = 1/2 times Mass times Velocity Squared, we get a much more understandable measure of Kinetic energy as it varies by speed:
115 grains at 1000 feet per second (fps) = 115 * (1000 x 1000) = 115,000,000 ... divided by 1,000,000 for convenience we get 115 ... never mind the units involved, as they are a constant.
115 grains at 1200 feet per second (fps) = 115 * (1200 x 1200) = 165,600,000 ... divided by 1,000,000 for convenience we get 165.6.
230 grains at 800 feet per second (fps) = 230 * (800 x 800) = 147,200,000 ... divided by 1,000,000 for convenience we get 147.2.
Given the experiential evidence that the U.S. Army in the Phillipines Expeditionary Force during the Spanish American War discovered that a .45 caliber bullet at standard load (bullet weight & velocity) was much more efficient than the .357 (.38 Special) 158 grain round nose bullet at standard load against attacking "amok" Maori tribesman, it may be reasonable to conclude that, within certain limits of velocity, the heavier bullet was more effecient in stopping attacks.
There are three other factors to be considered:
Penetration:
A bullet which penetrates completely through the body does not impart all of the available energy. The 9mm/.38 caliber bullet generally penetrates completely than the greater-diameter .45 caliber bullet.
Bullet design:
Some bullets may be designed to fragment or 'mushroom', providing a greater likelihood that the bullet will impart most or all of its energy and also my cause greater damage due to factors such as a larger wound diameter.
Velocity:
The formula for Momentum suggests that the 'impact' of a small bullet travelling at high velocity may impart more momentum than a heavier bullet at a slower velocity. The liklihood that a small, fast bullet is more likely to break up upon entry to a target of variable density should be factored in, but it's difficult to determine in advance the degree to which this would have an appreciable effect.
All of the fore-going B.S. is essentially meaningless. Recent studies (including Fackler) show that there are a HUGE number of variables which must be considered in determining the ability of a given cartridge to incapacitate an attacker. These include bullet weight, diameter & velocity as well as the density of the target (meat or bone?) the 'vital areas' hit (heart or liver or muscle?), and even whether the attacker is wearing heavy clothing, light clothing, or no clothing at all! Hollow-point bullets may be no more effective than FMJ if the attacker is wearing a shirt, because the cloth through which the bullet travels before reaching the body may fill the bullet cavity, limiting the probability that the bullet will fragment as it is designed to do.
We are left with empirical ... even anecdotal ... evidence.
The 9mm doesn't seem to be capable of reliably inflicting a mortal first-shot effect upon a determined attacker.
The M16, with its small, light but very FAST bullet, has demonstrably failed to provide first-shot 'kills' in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The .45acp has been shown to more frequently cause an attacker to falter, or be knocked down, because (apprently) the big, slow bullet acts more like a hammer than a stiletto (9mm) or a lightning bolt (5.56).
Ultimately, the U.S. decided to change the 'personal weapon' (pistol) from the .45acp to the 9mm because the latter caliber was accepted by NATO nations, and ammunition was more readily in multi-nation engagements.
Soldiers equiped with the 9mm NEED more bullets, because it has been shown to be less capable of being an effective defense round.
The U.S. decided to change the 'issued weapon' (rifle) from the 7.62 or the 30-06 because the ammunition was lighter, allowing soldiers to carry more ammunition for the same 'basic load' with no change in weight of ammunition carried, and because the rifles could be made lighter (reducing the weight penalty, allowing more ammunition to be carried for the same weight penalty.)
This may not have been "A Good Decision", because the people who chose the equipment were not the people who would actually USE the equipment.
As a personal aside, many soldiers in Viet Nam felt that these decisions were made for entirely political reasons. And the decision failed to consider such factors as ... when shooting through heavy jungle, the 5.56 bullet of the M16 tended to fragment when hitting a branch; the heavier, more robust .308 round of the M14 penetrated vegetation and carried on as a deadly missile against enemy troops concealed by foliage.
Finally, I can only mention that when I was in Viet Nam, our 'point men' ALWAYS tried to appropriate the increasingly rare M14 because those .308 rounds could penetrate foliage and kill Viet Cong troops who were trying to ambush an American column.
It isn't always a matter of 'stopping power', however you define it. Smaller calibers have been proven inadequate to reliably stop EVERY attacker under EVERY condition of cover and concealment. They may be adequate for SOME targets in SOME situations, but that's just not enough to protect American troops.
But then, that's just MY opinion. YMMV.
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